Noctua NH-L9i Review @ OCC

@ 2013/01/24

At stock speeds and voltages on the Core i7 2600K processor, Noctua's low profile NH-L9i was able to deliver a solid 13+% improvement of 10C, over the 73C load temperature delivered by the Intel box cooling solution. On top of that, it shaved 4C off the load temperature delivered by the the other low profile cooler in this comparison, the Phanteks TC90LS. With only a 65W TDP load capacity, these temperatures are a solid improvement when run on a higher wattage CPU than it is rated for. The other low profile solutions in the comparison failed to keep the CPU temps in check, with my overclocked settings. 96C is in no way kept in check, but at least Noctuas design kept the load temperature under 100C. It's not recommended to run that close to the TJ Max temp, but it was able to stay under that limit without throttling.